Gaza bombing witnesses describe horror of Israeli strike

When the first accounts emerged this week of what the Israeli armed forces did to the extended Samouni clan in Gaza they were initially lost in an already crowded chorus of civilian suffering.

Palestinians mourners carry the bodies of three toddlers, Ahmed, Mohamed, and Issa Samouni in ZeitounPhoto: AP

By Tim Butcher in Jerusalem

5:40PM GMT 09 Jan 2009

But as more survivors surfaced to give largely consistent testimony the horrific realisation emerged what happened to the Samouni family could constitute war crimes by Israel.

Israel is barring foreign journalists from Gaza so it is difficult to verify completely the survivors' accounts about an incident that left up to 70 civilians dead.

They contain allegations that Israeli forces shelled a building where they had previously put a large number of civilians, killed a child in cold blood, used human shields and failed to provide proper treatment to survivors.

Even though they were nearby, Israeli soldiers were found not to have taken action to help four children who spent 48 hours clinging to what the ambulance crew believed to be their mothers' corpses.

The Gazan town of Zeitoun has been home to the Samouni clan for generations but its location in the sandy southern approaches to Gaza City made it a strategic target for Israel on the first night of their ground offensive.

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After Israeli tanks and infantry rolled through the Gaza perimeter fence on last Saturday night one of the units headed straight to Zeitoun.

Known to be an area where Hamas militants have been active, Israeli commanders wanted to make sure they took the town as part of a strategy of encircling Gaza City and cutting it off from the rest of the Gaza Strip.

Surviving members of the Samouni family said that at around dawn on Sunday Israeli soldiers arrived in large numbers, knocking on doors and detaining men of fighting age.

Meysa Samouni, 19, described how the Israeli soldiers had "blackened'' their faces for night combat.

The troops went from house to house detaining younger men and then crowding a large number, mostly women and children, into a building owned by Wael Samouni.

Described by Meysa as a "warehouse'', up to 110 members of the Samouni family were forced inside without running water or food.

Conditions grew more dire and tensions rose so by dawn on Monday Rashed Samouni, 41, Meysa's father-in-law and two other men prepared to leave to go in search for missing family members and supplies.

As they left the door of the warehouse they were hit by a barrage.

"My husband went over to them to help, and then a shell or missile was fired onto the roof of the warehouse,'' Meysa said. "Based on the intensity of the strike, I think it was a missile from an F-16.

"When the missile stuck, I lay down with my daughter under me. Everything filled up with smoke and dust, and I heard screams and crying.

"After the smoke and dust cleared a bit, I looked around and saw twenty to thirty people who were dead, and about twenty who were wounded.

"The persons killed around me were my husband, who was hit in the back, my father-in-law, who was hit in the head and whose brain was on the floor, my mother-in-law Rabab, my father-in-law's brother Talal, and his wife Rhama Muhammad a-Samuni, 45, Talal's son's wife, Maha Muhammad a-Samuni, 19, and her son, Muhammad Hamli a-Samuni, 5 months, whose whole brain was outside his body, Razqa Muhammad a-Samuni, 50, Hanan Khamis a-Samuni, 30, and Hamdi Majid a-Samuni, 22.'' She said she tended to her nine month old daughter, Jumana, whose thumb and two fingers had been cut off one hand.

According to her count up to 30 died in the building but other witnesses suggest the death toll among the 110 crowded inside was higher.

Meysa said survivors and walking wounded eventually emerged and found some Israeli soldiers who took two of the male survivors and let the rest pass. She believed the men were to be used as human shields.

According to Majed Samouni, a 42-year-old farmer, he was corralled into another house in Zeitoun on Sunday by Israeli soldiers.

He alleged when Israeli soldiers went from house to house rounding up members of his family a cousin Atiyeh Samouni, 43, was shot dead by Israeli soldiers as he opened the door to his house.

Majed said 80 Samouni family members ended up crowded in his two-storey house before they too fled after the barrage early on Monday morning.

There were other allegations that Israeli soldiers picked off at least one member of the Samouni family as they fled.

By midday on Monday the first Samouni survivors got to Shifa hospital in Gaza City carrying mortally wounded children.

By Tuesday the mortuary had records of ten Samounis having died including three infants who were buried in funeral in Gaza City. A photograph of the funeral appeared on the front of the International Herald Tribune newspaper.

But the number of Samounis who had died but still lay in Zeitoun was unknown. The International Committee of the Red Cross and the local Palestinian Red Crescent twice tried to reach Zeitoun but it was too dangerous.

On Wednesday the ambulances were finally given permission by Israel but with Israeli earth berms on the roads and war damage it was difficult and dangerous for them to search Zeitoun properly.

Around 15 wounded were found including four traumatised children next to what ambulance crew took to be the corpses of their mothers.

The fact Israeli soldiers were within a hundred yards of the children but did not help them led to the ICRC to issue an uncharacteristically strong condemnation pointing out failing to help wounded violates the rules of war.

"The ICRC believes that in this instance the Israeli military failed to meet its obligation under international humanitarian law to care for and evacuate the wounded,'' the statement said.

"It considers the delay in allowing rescue services access unacceptable.'' And it demanded full access to Zeitoun to recover wounded civilians it believes are still there.

Israel has so far refused permission for the ambulances to carry out a full sweep.

Last night an Israeli army spokesman said an initial internal investigation had found no evidence Israeli armed forces had done anything wrong during combat around the Samouni family homes in Zeitoun.

He denied the army massed civilians in specific locations and said there was no record of a “specific attack on a specific target’’ in the area last Monday.

“This does not rule out exchanges of fire but it does rule out targeting of a specific building,’’ he said.